When I first began The Sounds of State last October, the first person to ever respond to me was Carmen Huerta, it took a very long time for us to finally sit down for our interview but here it is! Once we finally met up, we realized that we had actually known each other from our radio shows the semester before. Their show, Aztec Beat, preceded my show, Talking Aztec Sports with Cameron and Jackson, last semester. They always had colorful guests and interesting conversations related to San Diego State topics. Usually I interview music people, so I was caught somewhat off guard and had to improvise questions for the duo, so bear with me on this one. But either way, Carmen and Marissa were wonderful guests and without further ado, here’s the interview:

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Cameron Satterlee: I’m sitting outside of the KCR studio, roughly, with Carmen and Marissa. Thanks for being on here.

Both: Thank you.

CS: So when is your show?

Marissa Ochoa: It’s Fridays from 12 to 1 pm.

Carmen Huerta: Isn’t it 1 to 2?

MO: It’s 12 to 1. I dunno, you’re the one that’s on air.

CH: No it’s 1 to 2!

MO: Okay, it’s Fridays 1 to 2 pm!

CH: It’s 1 to 2 cause I have class afterwards!

MO: Sorry sorry, I’m on the internet so I don’t remember sometimes.

CS: Well let’s just say listen in on Fridays to KCR and we’ll get you covered.

CH: It’s 1 to 2!

MO: Yeah it’s 1 to 2 (laughing).

CS: You’re the first news show I’ve ever had, so this is exciting, I’ll ask you some news related questions. Well first I want to ask how long you’ve been with KCR. I know you’ve been on for at least one semester cause my show followed yours up last semester. So how long have you been with us?

CH: For me, a year and a half.

MO: I’ve been with KCR for two years now.

CS: Alright cool, yeah I guess that’s as long as I’ve been with KCR. So as a new show, our normal news block is earlier in the morning, right?

MO: We’re not really a news, hardcore news show.

CS: You’re talk radio.

MO: We’re talk radio, yeah.

CS: Well so, what do you do for the most part? I mean, I know that’s an open ended question but I’m curious.

MO: Well in terms of news we don’t focus in on local news,, we focus in on SDSU news, so we get guests that are SDSU students or directors or…

CH: Organizations.

MO: Organizations and we interview them. So our news show isn’t for the public, it’s for SDSU students specifically.

CH: It’s like a features show.

MO: Yeah that’s a good way to describe it.

CS: Yeah I remember you had all these cool guests when I followed you up. I can’t remember any of them specifically, but I think one of them was in charge of the gardens here.

MO: Yeah.

CH: Oh the garden guy!

MO: And we also had a really cool guy, a comedian come on our show.

CH: That was our big guest.

MO: That was a huge one cause he is a legit comedian and he came to do our radio show with us.

CH: Cause he actually tours.

MO: Yeah listening to a celebrity is pretty cool, having him as a guest.

CS: Yeah yeah I remember the comedian, he had a whole posse come into the studio.

Both: Yeah!

MO: He did.

CS: That was interesting, you got a pretty neat show going on. I don’t think I’ve ever interviewed anyone who has regular guests on so that’s pretty cool.

CH: Well we were pretty lucky cause of Jocelyn.

MO: Yeah Jocelyn would give us guests, cause the guests we get on our show are normally SDSU based, and the guests Jocelyn gets are bigger in terms of who they are. But Carmen does a good job of finding guests and I do my part as well, so it’s really a group effort when we find who our guests are supposed to be.

CS: And so what made you want to go to KCR to do this kind of show? Because most people do music and sports, sort of.

CH: Well when I joined I didn’t know which section I wanted to do, when I saw news I was like “oh well that’s something I’m interested in” but I’m not a news CNN type person. So I thought “okay I’ll do a talk radio thing” and then my previous host, Jocelyn, she wanted to do something in the same way so we came up with Aztec Beat. And so it was from her that the idea came out, and when she couldn’t do it this year I was lucky enough to have Marissa. She was still on board with the same idea so she came on.

MO: Yeah, well my shows before her were very entertainment based. My first show was a movie-based show, so I did a lot of movie reviews. Then after that I went a lot into entertainment news. And it wasn’t until I got on board with Carmen that I transitioned more to SDSU news. And it’s been a lot better cause it’s much more relevant to listeners any ways.

CH: Yeah.

CS: Yeah that’s pretty cool, especially the movie reviews thing. I know that’s not what you do anymore.

MO: Honestly since it was the first show I ever did it was bad, I look back on it and go “oh my god.” Well what was funny was that I was right before our general manager’s show, our old one, Matt Anderson, and so his show was always really great and my show was before his and I always thought “why did you guys put me in this slot?”

CH: But she’s brought some really good ideas, often we did it more last semester, the trivia games at the end and playing with the guests.

MO: So just try to keep it lively, keep the guests entertained and make sure that the listeners are entertained at well.

CH: Cause you can’t just talk for an hour, that’s weird.

MO: No.

CH: Or our guests ramble and we’re like “what?”

CS: Yeah so where are you planning on taking the show in the future, or are you just kind of on a roll.

CH: I wish our show could get more recognition. I really don’t listen to the other shows but I think we’re doing a really good job and I don’t think we get enough credit. And that might sound a little bit biased, but I don’t think we get enough credit, we do a lot.

MO: Yeah I think we do a good job in terms of shows and all the other news shows do tremendous jobs as well. But the news section in general could get a lot more recognition. I think that a lot of the time they don’t know how much effort goes into talking for an hour. I mean, you should know, you’re a sports guy so you know how talking for an hour is really difficult and so yeah I guess in terms of recognition it’s something we can always strive for. But the show’s direction for next year, I think we need to keep going on what we’ve been doing. Each show is a learning experience, you learn from your mistakes and you build off them. And it’s just continue off of what we’ve already done and make it better than what it is now.

CS: Alright well thanks, this has been a great interview.

Both: Thank you.

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So there you have it, my first ever interview with one of KCR’s great news programs. Be sure to tune in to Aztec Beat every Friday from 1 to 2 pm, that’s 1 to 2. Only on KCR College Radio, the Sound of State.